Thread: Harry Secombe

Short i know, i hope more will be added on this guy at later times...

Harry Secombe to General Montgomery in North Africa during WWII. Montgomery was standing on the back of a truck making one of his rousing speeches to the troops before they went into battle against the Axis forces. At some point his gaze fell on Harry Secombe who was standing at the front. Harry was a Bombardier in the Artillery, covered in boils, had his glasses broken in several places and put back together with sticky tape, and wore an ill fitting uniform for his rotund shape. Montgomery's speech ground to an awkward silence as he examined his soldier who was beaming up at him. With a huge grin and a salute, Harry filled the void with a cry of "We are with you sir!", to which the troops cheered and Montgomery replied "um, good", before continuing...


It was the description of Secombe that did it for me, boils, glasses and stick tape, and his shape that fitted the Uniform...


Wiki...

Another story I remember Harry Secombe relating on television, the Michael Parkinson Show I think, about the day he first met Spike Milligan.

As Secombe related it with that inimitable giggle, in the desert at that time nobody had any real idea of what to do or how to do it, consequently the lines of guns were set up with the heavy artillery at the front and the lighter guns further towards the rear, as he said just within range for shelling our own heavy guns. This particular day, a heavy gun was placed at the top of a ridge, rather than being dug into its own gun pit. Well, as any artillery man can tell you, when the thing is fired there is a certain amount of … recoil, which sent this gun backwards down the side of the ridge, followed by the gun crew frantically trying to catch it again.
Secombe was in his tent with his fingers in his ears as the runaway gun went past followed by the crew when the tent was opened and Milligan stuck his head into the tent and in his finest “Eccles” voice asked “Anybody seen a gun?”
The start of a lifelong friendship.

And while I’m on the subject of the Goons, I well remember another episode of the same show when Peter Sellars walked on wearing a leather trench coat and a German helmet declaring “Your Vinston Churchill sinks he is a painter? Now, Hitler, zere voz a painter; a whole apartment, two coats, vun afternoon!”

Regards, Brian